The Indians had a rough weekend at Progressive Field, after their victory in the home opener on Friday. Carlos Carrasco and Justin Masterson surrendered way too many runs, and the Indians were unable to make up the difference at the plate. Rain is forecast for this evening, but I’m sure they’re going to try their best to play since it would be fairly tough to schedule a make-up with the Padres.

Even though the Indians haven’t seen the Padres in a regular season game for a couple of years, they do see them each spring in Arizona, and they also played a couple of additional exhibition games against them at the end of spring training. Corey Kluber got knocked around a bit in his last start against Oakland, but the Indians really need him to turn it around tonight. With early exits from both Carrasco and Masterson, they’ve already had to go to the bullpen early and often.

As much as I like Francona, his leadoff hitter decisions baffle me. When Bourn is out, I’d rather see Kipnis, Brantley or Swisher. But he forces guys like Cabrera, Stubbs and Nyjer Morgan (although Morgan’s actually been pretty solid so far).

Ghost of Joel Skinner

We really don’t have a leadoff hitter.

Cabrera is slow, out of shape, has horrible plate discipline, and his swing is just god-awful. Stubbs (last year) K’ed way too much. Bourn’s plate discipline is just as good Cabrera’s. Nyjer Morgan isn’t going to blow up the highlight real, but at least he’s getting on base.

The Doctor

i’d love to see swisher there.

the 6:2 BB:K in 22 PAs by morgan has been a nice surprise. i don’t forsee that holding up, but if there was any prolonged indication that morgan could provide a similar level of production to bourn for a fraction of the price, i’d love to see us try and bamboozle someone into taking bourn off our hands.

Ghost of Joel Skinner

The Bourn contract is just awful.

Stephanie Liscio

Sorry – I actually meant to change this with the rain-out update but didn’t get the chance. I had it set to go up at 6, and tried to adjust it on my phone before my 5:30 meeting, but my phone was being a jerk. Meeting started, I gave up.

And that’s the very long story about why this post still acts like there will be a game!